Standby

I’m on standby for another 24 hours. At some point I’ll go to the rotary terminal and sit around for three or four hours sequestered, waiting for the flight. Understandably, the flight schedule is classified and seemingly random and unpredictable. Based on my briefings yesterday I have gathered that I will be a frequent flier on helos during this tour, making it unlikely that I will convoy anywhere beyond my immediate area (I think I am responsible for a FOB that is 1 or 2 miles away). I’ve been told that much of my territory is not easily accessed by vehicles, so I have to fly.

That cheered me up. In the last three months I have seen hours of Taliban video of US vehicles being hit by VBEDs and IEDs and being ambushed with RPGs and small arms (available on the public domain, as they video many of their attacks and then post them on the internet—www.ogrish.com-- but be warned that much of it is not for the faint of heart so don’t look for it if there are some things you would rather not see). It’s good for me to see that stuff, given my job, and it would probably be good for me to experience a convoy or two for that same reason, but I will not go out of my way to seek that particular experience.

I learned more about my job yesterday during several hours of briefing. One element will be a traditional role as a military psychologist, seeing clients/patients who walk in to our little clinic and doing psychiatric evaluations for commanders and other health care providers in my particular area of responsibility. This will probably be a small part of the job, given the size of my FOB.

The more prominent role will be doing outreach and “walkabouts”. This is comprised of just walking around, introducing myself, talking to the Chaplains and the leadership and keeping my face familiar. This will probably be the most challenging for me because I don’t think of myself as being a spontaneously social person. It will probably be easy at our small FOB—because we’ll know everyone pretty quickly—but this will be challenging when I travel to the outlying FOBs. Not only will I will be a stranger, but I’ll have three marks against me from the start: I’m an officer, I’m Air Force, and I’m a shrink. I’ll guess I’ll have to redefine myself a bit.

The third element will be doing Traumatic Event Management, or TEM. This is basically a structured debriefing procedure that Army behavioral health uses when there is some sort of traumatic event, which usually means death/injury of someone in a platoon or company. The debriefing is flexible and context dependent and can take a variety of forms. It is not empirically supported as being helpful, but there is a small amount of recent Army research that has suggested that it isn’t harmful, which has been the big controversy about debriefing in recent years. It serves as an opportunity for a third party to check in with soldiers 24-48 hours after they have experienced a severe stressor. Even if they don’t talk much, we have at least educated them about signs/symptoms of COSR (Combat Operational Stress Reactions), given them some ideas about coping, and maybe, just maybe, that one guy who is having trouble will talk to us later…

On today’s agenda is final packing, and getting a set of ACU’s (the Army Combat Uniform). We are required to wear ACU’s or a flight suit if we fly in helicopters because those uniforms are flame retardant, wear as the USAF in all it’s wisdom made our brand new ABU uniform flammable.

Some photos from around BAF:

The B-Huts I’m staying in, built by the ROK Army Engineering Group. There are 8 people per hut and each person has about 40 sq feet of space, partitioned off with 6 ft high plywood walls. They get pretty hot in the afternoon.

A French Renault APC. Yes the French have a compound here, and this group had just come back from sort of mission.

This is what we drink here—thousands of bottles of water. It is stacked on pallets all over base and is bottled in the town of Bagram. If you like to drink bottled water, then this is the place for you. You just walk up and grab a bottle. It’s free and plentiful. They incinerate all of the bottles, along with the rest of the trash that BAF generates.

This is the bunker outside my hut. They are positioned all over base but are rarely used here at BAF. It’s basically a concrete tube with open ends on each side, surrounded by sandbags.
Looks just like Vegas. The pink bus is shuttling local workers to some location on base.
Typical early morning scene on Disney Drive—the main drag on BAF.

These are those hell tents I mentioned in an earlier post, right by a fuel depot. Trust me, they are disgusting inside.

The vehicle in the front is an MRAP; a V-bottomed vehicle that is resistant to all but the largest IEDs. There are quite a few around here. This is what I would hope to ride in if I had to convoy somewhere.

The Pat Tillman USO. You gotta respect Pat Tillman for what he did. It’s a shame the Army covered up the circumstances of his death but it doesn’t detract from the meaning of his life’s story.

The Left Captain

I’m going to revisit the “Left Captain” theme, as it’s been a while since I’ve made any partisan comments, and I find myself in a dynamic process of justifying to myself why I am here, but this is normal for me. I want to think that I am a part of a honorable war effort, part of a force that is doing good things. Most soldiers/airmen who talk about justifying the war put it simple terms: we are killing terrorists who want to kill us, and that’s good enough. Simple, elegant, but it doesn’t completely work for me. Those simple terms will likely work well for me in the event that I experience 102mm Chinese rockets, or drive in a convoy anywhere near the Pakistan border, but I need more than bad guy/good guy.

I believe that NATO is justified in ousting the Taliban and has a responsibility to begin to rebuild the country, support a new government, and help keep the Taliban out (by training Afghan security forces). I think this is part of being good world citizens. The US has a special part in this, as we ignited the hottest part of the Soviet-Afghan war and then walked away, sowing the seeds of our current harvest here in Afghanistan.

Our biggest failure since 2002 has been alienating our allies. Bush is politically toxic for everyone, making it hard for nations to give blood and treasure to support what has been branded as Bush’s “War on Terror”. I get angry when I think that our leaders will not do more to develop a true coalition, using diplomacy and compromise to bring in additional reconstruction and military support from other countries. Instead they are willing to lay the burden upon the shoulders of America’s sons and daughters.

This war should be fought by international soldiers, shoulder to shoulder. It is, to a degree, but we carry the heaviest load. I don’t really blame any one person (!) and I don’t blame Europe. I’m hopeful that a leadership change in the US will lead to changes in foreign policy strategy and tactics.

But to come full circle with this, I know for sure that the vast majority of our soldiers, airmen and sailors are here meaning to do good things—leaving their homes and families and friends, risking their lives, but doing so because they believe they are doing something positive, whether it be hunting down suicide bombers, vaccinating kids, building schools and footbridges, or training Afghan doctors in Kabul.

It’s important to remember that our people are here with the intention to do something good and from what I hear, a lot of good things happen. The politics of war seem very distant and irrelevant to me, sitting over here. This is about people.
Now the contractors, they’re just here to make money, but that’s a different story.